The present invention relates to systems and devices for use in connection with minimal or limited access procedures, such as minimally invasive surgical procedures.
Minimally invasive surgical procedures, e.g., laparascopic procedures, have dramatically reduced patient recovery times. However, the reduced recovery times have correspondingly resulted in an increase, from a surgeon's perspective, in the complexity of the surgical procedures. This is in part due to the characteristic relatively small incisions, e.g., approximately 10 mm in diameter, through which a surgeon accesses a surgical site to perform the minimally invasive surgery. The limited access adds to the complexity of the surgical procedures since surgeons must remotely manipulate sufficiently small instruments though the incisions and must also view the surgical site through the small incisions.
Imaging systems that provide a view of the surgical site for a minimal access surgical procedure typically include an endoscope, e.g., a tubular instrument containing optical lenses and light guides that feed images to an external video camera and a monitor, such as the endoscope discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,651,201. Endoscopes, however, have drawbacks. For instance, since the surgeon is generally using both hands to manipulate other instruments used in the procedure, e.g., forceps, scissors, coagulators/cauterizer probes, etc., an assistant is required to hold and orient the endoscope to adjust the view during the procedure. Robotics have recently been introduced to automate the task of orienting the endoscope during minimally invasive surgical procedures, such as the Automated Endoscopic System for Optimal Positioning (“AESOP”). The AESOP uses a robot arm that is directed by spoken commands to orient the endoscope. While the AESOP takes the burden off the assistant and provides a much more stable view of the field, the equipment necessary for the AESOP is complex and occupies a large part of the operating room floor.
A smaller and simpler robotic endoscope manipulator that can be placed directly over the insertion point was developed at the Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatiqueinria (“INRIA”). However, the INRIA system as well as other robotic systems fail to address the limited available range of motion about the fulcrum at the abdominal wall through which the endoscope as well as other instruments pass to gain access to the surgical site. The limited range of motion translates into limits with regard to the degree of freedom that the instruments may be oriented toward the surgical site.
Active or hyper endoscope systems have been proposed that generally consist of a multi-link robotic arm with a camera mounted thereon, such as the active endoscope discussed in Japanese Patent 2000175865, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference, which provide additional freedom with respect to orienting the endoscope camera. However, these systems require a dedicated incision for the endoscope to access the surgical site and typically require relatively high voltage to operate the actuators necessary to manipulate the hyper endoscope which from a safety perspective may be problematic when used in surgical procedures. Pill cameras have also been adopted for imaging sections of the small intestine that are out of the reach of a colonoscope, such as the pill camera described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,604,531 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,428,469. However, pill cameras do not generally include means for orienting the camera; rather, pill cameras merely rely on peristalsis to orient the camera.
There is therefore a need for systems and devices for minimal access procedures that do not require an assistant to hold and orient an instrument and that provide additional or greater freedom than is provided with an endoscope or other instrument with regard to orienting the instrument toward the site of interest. There is also a need for systems and devices for minimal access procedures that provide additional or greater freedom with regard to orienting the instrument toward a site of interest than is provided with an active or hyper endoscope that do not require a dedicated access incision into the site for the instrument.